News Roundup › Culture

Cities that shelled out big bucks to learn Richard Florida’s prescription for vibrant urbanism are now hearing they may be beyond help.

Source: The American Prospect | Archived Copy

The 2009 results are in! This summer, Travel & Leisure readers ranked 30 U.S. cities on their culture, shopping, restaurants, nightlife, and more. See how New Orleans fared with visitors and residents.

Source: Travel and Leisure | Archived Copy

The perfect city isn’t static. It’s evolving and ever changing, and its laws and structure allow that to happen. Neighborhoods change, clubs close and others open, yuppies move in and move out—as long as there is a mix of some sort, then business districts and neighborhoods stay healthy even if they’re not what they once were. My perfect city isn’t fixed, it doesn’t actually exist, and I like it that way.

Source: The Wall Street Journal | Archived Copy

Chalmette native Matt Faust’s heart-wrenching 6-minute short film has made it on to New Yew York Magazine’s list of Top 5 Favorite Short Films showing at Tribeca this year. Listen to Matt tell why he made the film when he presented it last October as part of the New Orleans Speaks Conference, co-sponsored by The Urban Conservancy.
— Editor

When he started it, Matt Faust envisioned his short film “Home” as little more than an exercise in self-prescribed, post-Katrina therapy.

With no formal background in filmmaking — and armed with just a collection of old photos, home videos and some computer expertise he picked up while earning degrees in Landscape Architecture at LSU — the Hannan High School graduate simply wanted to make a video that might help his family remember what was lost when their home on tiny Derbigny Street in Chalmette was destroyed by the storm.

“I felt like it was something I just had to do, for myself and my family, ” Faust said last week.

What he couldn’t have envisioned was that his wordless six-minute film would find its way to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, one of the nation’s premiere film fests, where it will screen this week in competition in the documentary-short category. “Read more.”:

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

To expand their coalition, Lang said, Republicans will need to find ways to talk about issues relevant to metropolitan areas. “You don’t have to have the same policies as the Democrats, but you have to talk about this and not just talk about values in the small towns,” he said.

Source: The Washington Post | Archived Copy

Dan Cameron, a veteran curator and the founder of Prospect.1, came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and didn’t want to leave. He seems to have sensed that in the city’s rawness a different kind of biennial was waiting to break free. Because New Orleans lacked an obvious site for the event or the means to build one, Mr. Cameron has distributed his selections in about 30 locations: several museums and alternative spaces, as well as public buildings, old houses and empty lots stripped bare by the hurricane.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

“Motivated by the desire to exploit the metered parking space as a site for art, activism, and cultural expression, REBAR offers PARK Day as a prototype for open source urban design accessible to all,” says a statement in the project’s “assembly manual.”

Source: MSN City Guides | Archived Copy

“Small business is too important to the state’s economy for policymakers to ignore it.”

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New Yorkers like the Wilkses are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block.

This urban agriculture movement has grown even more vigorously elsewhere. Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.

Source: New York Times | Archived Copy

The recent uptick in big-box projects and proposals in the Crescent City, fueled by tax subsidies and other costly giveaways, has left owners of smaller home-grown businesses in related industries gritting their teeth and bracing for hard times.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“It is only fitting that New Orleans’ favorite beer sponsors and supports this showcase for New Orleans’ unique cultural heritage,” said David Blossman, president of Abita Brewing Co. “We’re glad to do our part to help keep the French Quarter Festival the largest free music festival in the South.”

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

The opening note has been sounded on the long-awaited renovation of a historic jazz hall in Treme, signaling progress for what is expected to become a major tourist attraction in a part of the city long ignored by most tourists, despite its storied past.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

In the late 1960s, I argued that DC should have governing neighborhood commissions. When we were granted “advisory neighborhood commissions” in the 1970s, I argued that our first goal should be to kick the A out of ANC, replacing their token status with real governmental powers. I still believe such bodies are a greatly needed national urban reform. Among the jobs of such bodies would be to preserve the community and culture which they serve.

Source: Progressive Review | Archived Copy

The 2,500 square feet of space on the first floor of the circa-1820 building, which by the summer of 2009 will contain half a million dollars’ worth of exhibits, will launch what the superintendent calls the “soft opening” of one of 391 national parks.

It also could refer tourists and others to its satellite site, a $12 million “world-class jazz museum” under development at the Old U.S. Mint in the French Quarter, and to a jazz walk of fame along the levee in Algiers, a short ferry ride away.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Today, though, Wal-Mart’s influence over the retail universe is slipping. In fact, the industry’s titan is scrambling to keep up with swifter rivals that are redefining the business all around it. It can still disrupt prices, as it did last year by cutting some generic prescriptions in the United States to $4. But success is no longer guaranteed.

Source: MSN | Archived Copy

Pre-Katrina, the St. Charles line, which extended from Canal Street to Carrollton Avenue and Claiborne Avenue, ran 24 hours a day, but the new Canal-to-Napoleon service will operate daily from 5:27 a.m. to 11:55 p.m. with a fleet of five 1923 Perley Thomas streetcars running 10 minutes apart.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“The new broadcast outlet offers a window into the rapidly changing African American political consciousness in post-Katrina New Orleans. The new format, “Talk Back: Talk Black” marks a significant development in African American political life post-Katrina. Bakewell’s comments on today’s broadcast made it clear that his goal is to make WBOK a voice for African Americans in New Orleans and the Diaspora.

Source: The New Orleans Agenda | Archived Copy

A dozen boats, remnants of a commercial fishing fleet that once numbered 150 vessels, have returned to their historic home in Bucktown for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Rouses, an independent family-run company, … currently operates 16 stores in Louisiana, including four in the metro area. The chain has been eager to step up its presence in the New Orleans area and its involvement in the region’s post-Hurricane Katrina recovery.

“Who better than us to do it?” asked Donald Rouse, president of the company. “I don’t think a chain from out-of-state can come in and understand what’s going on, and we understand it and live it.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The mere mention of gentrification has so inflamed the discussion … that stereotypes and political grandstanding have obscured the facts and tangible impacts on real people. Austin succeeded, at least in part, in detaching itself from much of the hyperbole by conducting a set of separate, relatively rigorous studies on the intersection of gentrification and preservation. The city’s efforts have suggested that the answer to gentrification is not found in broad-brush generalizations, but rather in analyzing each neighborhood’s specific economic and social concerns, understanding them as inextricably tied to a complex local history, and devising appropriate solutions and strategies responsive to the community’s needs and aspirations.

Source: The Next American City | Archived Copy

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

According to the blueprint overseas travel to the US has slumped 17 per cent since 2001, even as world travel to other countries reaches historic growth levels. The decline has cost US$94 billion ($127 billion) in visitor spending, US$16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs.

Source: The New Zealand Herald | Archived Copy

“Don’t tell people all over the world that we need to save the jazz musicians of New Orleans and then turn around and shut down one of their jazz clubs,” said Ben Gersh.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

The New Orleans Video Access Center’s and the Digital Filmmaking Institute’s first “48 Hour Film School” workshop Jan. 27-28 produced a completed short film “Breaking Bread.” It was produced by workshop participants, edited in one day, and is available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdHnEU07cs.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

MS&R donated the time and talent to restore the Alvar Street Branch Library. Located in the Bywater Neighborhood of New Orleans, it is the first library severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina to reopen.

Source: MS&R | Archived Copy

The Haley Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame, which began in 1999, is an
extension of the in-school curriculum developed by Haley faculty member Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Queen of the Guardians of the Flame Mardi Gras Indians. She established a program to teach Haley students to appreciate their Mardi Gras Indian culture and to learn from the traditions of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians.

Source: Pat Jolly Community List | Archived Copy

What? Live Music, Art, and Food.
Where? 2831 Marais St. (Corner of Marais and Press Sts.)
When? July 29th 12pm to 10pm.

Source: Hand Bill | Archived Copy

Cyril Neville boarded Amtrak’s City of New Orleans train with a full head of steam. He joined singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie earlier this month for the first leg of a 12-day journey from Chicago to New Orleans, playing concerts along the way to raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Neville, however, won’t be on the train when it rolls into his old hometown. He won’t be going home at all.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Archived Copy

My wife questions the wisdom of my frequent forays into the massive expanse of blown-apart lives and property that local street maps used to call Gentilly, Lakeview, the East and the Lower 9th. She fears that it contributes to my unhappiness and general instability and I suspect she is right.

Perhaps I should just stay on the stretch of safe, dry land Uptown where we live and try to move on, focus on pleasant things, quit making myself miserable, quit reliving all those terrible things we saw on TV that first week.

That’s advice I wish I could follow, but I can’t. I am compelled for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. And so I drive.

Source: Times Picayune | Archived Copy